You are here

News Release

Contact

Statement of U.S. PIRG Advocates on Introduction by Senators Elizabeth Warren and Mark Warner of the "Data Breach Prevention and Compensation Act" (their release, their bill and their fact sheet).

"U.S. PIRG commends Senators Warren and Warner for the Data Breach Prevention and Compensation Act. It will ensure that credit bureaus protect your information as if you actually mattered to them and it will both punish them and compensate you when they fail to do so. The credit bureaus are different from retailers or other entities that could be breached. They hold a treasure trove of personal information valuable to identity thieves, but have long demonstrated a disdain for consumers, who they treat as products, not customers. In years of seeking to bring the credit bureaus to heel, I am more and more convinced that hitting them in the wallet, as this bill does, is the best way forward."

-- U.S. PIRG Consumer Program Director, Ed Mierzwinski

"We look at this bill as a necessary counterpart to Senator Warren's FREE (Freedom From Equifax Exploitation) Act, which we also support and would provide free credit freezes for all consumers, so that they gain some control over the protection of their financial DNA, which the credit bureaus routinely buy and sell without consumer consent."